Thank you, Green voters of Walthamstow

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Thank you to Walthamstow voters who followed a national trend and delivered more Green votes compared to 2017. A 60% increase in votes for the Greens across the country shows the public is ready for immediate climate action, a Green New Deal, and a change to our voting system. If you want to continue to push for those ideas then consider joining, https://join.greenparty.org.uk.

Now more than ever I fear for the future of the UK and the world. We’re not the biggest or richest country, but we can still be a major influence on the global stage. We could have been leaders in environmental solutions and how we treat each other. Instead, we are set to become more inward-looking and more aggressive in our foreign policy, leading to a less safe world. We also seem set to break up the UK. There is no solution to Brexit that won’t jeopardise the relationship between England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland.

We are where we are not because the public has rejected transformative progressive politics or because they have embraced a Conservative vision of the UK, whose own vote share barely moved in comparison, but because Labour has failed in its attempt to be all things to all people.

A broad church does not work in a First Past The Post system. The Labour Party needs to recognise that the best way to deliver the change that we want to see is not by trying to force all voters to vote for them, but by recognising that smaller parties help to amplify voices that would otherwise be lost in a bigger party. This can only happen under a Proportional Representation system. Sadly the chance of this happening now seems further away, but we cannot, and must not give up.

Politics is going to be a mess for some time to come, with lots of in-fighting as politicians – who are meant to be on the same side – split into factions and vie for the power to shape the policies of their own party, while the Conservatives get on with their damaging manifesto.